Fiction

Last night, after I had been branded with the Dark Mark and bought myself an honest to goodness wand and waited for over two hours to be sorted by the local sorting hat, I found myself standing in one more line. This line was long and thick with people in pj's spanning the complete width and length of the Walmart in Layton Utah. It was probably around 1:30am when I drove home with my very own copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.


Now, be assured... this blog has nothing to do with the Harry Potter book or its story (especially since I am a slow reader and KNOW someone will spoil the ending of the 7th book for me sooner or later). What I wanted to address, was the passion we have for fictional characters. What is it that makes us stay till 3 am in a one stop shopping center waiting for somone to hand over our own copy of the last installment of a story? Why can't we wait till the next morning? Why did I wait on my feet and end up paying a woman for one of her extra books, rather than wait six hours and pick up a book for myself the next morning? Why do I NEEED to get home and see what Harry is going through?

I guess we care about these characters. We care about what they choose for themselves. We care about what they teach us and we want to know about their lives. In fact, most people have felt this for more than books. Did you ever wonder what would happen to Frodo and that blasted ring? Or, what would Mary Jane say when Peter Parker told her his BIG secret? In fact, we follow this fascination all the way through TV. We worry about Jack Bauer and we scream at the TV when John Locke screws up AGAIN and prevents people from escaping that ridiculous island!!!


My only answer to this is that bottom line: Fictional characters feel real. That is what makes good writing. But these stories are not just vain attempts for us to live the lives we lack, they are bits and pieces of each of us. Something tells me that J.K. Rowling has a lot of love for her Harry Potter and has probably put a lot of herself in him and Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley etc. The first rule to writing is" write what you know." And we are attracted to what we know. I love Harry Potter because his reactions to even the smallest adolescent moments have reminded me of my own life. It is those moments when I put the book down on my lap and laugh out loud because I can say, "Whoa, that sounds familiar!!" I suddenly don't feel so alone. We are really on our own when it comes to this life. Things get hard, but writers are a special breed. They are the wide-eyed ones. They notice and absorb what we all feel and jot it down somwhere rather than disregard it. They are the people with tiny books and notes stuffed in pockets filled with tiny phrases birthing ideas. The writers spin it all out using half imagination and half experience and hope someone can relate.

So, what is it that makes reading and charaters in movies and tv so attractive? Well, I believe a big part of it is that we know in our hearts it isn't real. In life, we have to deal with reality. With broken conversations and explanations. We are flawed... but the ficitonal character can have a perfect conversation with a significant other, because the writer has crafted and molded it for months. Oh, the joy!! What would it be like to tell someone how you feel and not drive home later that night, cringing to yourself when you remember what you have said?!

All in all, the fictional character is each of us, but without strings attached. We trust the writer. Even when everything goes insane, we KNOW the writer will bring us back to the doorway we started from. We might not even get closure, but we will be taken to our destination and we will arrive in one piece.

So, this blog is really a salute to ficiton. I salute the writers who create worlds and characters that resemble each of us, yet still have the power to remind us, it is fiction. It isn't real. No one died in the making of this movie or the writing of this book. But, what power! That still, we dress and talk and laugh like the characters we love so much. That when someone dies in a book or a movie, we cry real tears and experience the same emotions we would if that person was truly gone. How lovely to flip back to page one or reset the DVD... and start all over again.